Several scaffolds based on natural origin polymers
have been widely studied for tissue engineering
application. Many of them exhibit unique advantageous
features concerning intrinsic cellular interaction
and degradability. However, these materials do
also exhibit some disadvantages that limit their
widespread use. Therefore, it is necessary to increase
the knowledge about these natural polymers in order
to enable the development of new approaches,
including methods for production, purification,
controlling material properties (molecular weight,
mechanical, degradation rate), and for enhancing
material biocompatibility (for instance by using
nonanimal derived production), in order to design
better and more versatile scaffolding materials.
Tissue engineering scaffolding will also benefit
from advances in recombinant protein technologies,
which have proven to be a very powerful tool for the
design and production of complex protein polymers
with well-defined molecular weights, monomer
compositions, sequences, and stereochemistry. Very
little has been explored within this new class of
polymers and therefore much remains to be